Ceremony

Horror film is what I looked at for the ingredients to make Nyctinasty, taking those ingredients and then changing them so much that they become almost delicate. For anybody who doesn’t have that connection to a spiritual side, the film will seem horror-esque, but to anybody who does have that experience, it’s going to be a connection to the way they experience it. There’s many things in this film that are made to mesmerise, to make you feel like you’re meditating, where you are feeling as well as watching — the hands and the crushing of charcoal, the spitting of the fire, the pot boiling with the egg bouncing around, the vacant wall, where you know there’s nothing there but there’s something there.

— Hayley Millar Baker, 2021